Fwd: Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program
Bipin Gautam
Could someone please re-define the meaning of word "terrorist" for me then ?
let there be peace.
-bipin
On 7/17/09, David Bier <techa...@gmail.com> wrote:
> “The plan to deploy small teams of assassins grew out of the CIA’s early
> efforts to battle al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
> attacks,”..:“The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency’s
> actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to
> notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.”
> COMMENT: So Bush43 threw the Ford ban on assassinations into the toilet,
> gave direction to assassinate targets anywhere, including the U.S., and
> instructed the CIA to disregard the law requiring that its covert operations
> be reported to the Congress. They ought to haul his ass back and impeach
> him for violating his oath to defend and protect the laws of the United
> States and the Constitution. Yeah folks, Congress can impeach a FORMER
> President and if he is convicted, Bush43 would be stripped of all government
> benefits including pension, guard detail, social security...everything.
> Throw in Cheney too as he apparently managed the program and specifically
> directed the CIA not to brief Congress. IMPEACHMENT...Go for it!
>
> David Bier
>
> http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/16/report-no-geographical-limitations-on-cia-assassination-program/
>
> *Report: ‘No geographical limitations’ on CIA assassination program*
>
> Posted By *Stephen C. Webster* On July 16, 2009 @ 4:17 pm In
>
> The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret assassination squad was allowed to
> operate anywhere in the world, including the United States, according to [1]
> a Thursday report in *The Washington
> Post*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html>
> .
>
> “The plan to deploy small teams of assassins grew out of the CIA’s early
> efforts to battle al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” the
> paper reported. “A secret document known as a ‘presidential finding’ was
> signed by President George W. Bush that same month, granting the agency
> broad authority to use deadly force against bin Laden as well as other
> senior members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”
>
> Reporter Joby Warrick added: “The finding imposed no geographical
> limitations on the agency’s actions, and intelligence officials have said
> that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged
> under the directive.”
>
> This revelation, buried in paragraph 12 of the *Post*’s report, was
> highlighted by T[2] alking Points Memo’s Zachary
> Roth<http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/report_cia_assassin_program_could_operate_anywhere.php>later
> in the afternoon.
>
> “‘No geographical limitations’ presumably means that operations could
> potentially be carried out in countries, friendly or unfriendly, that are
> far from any war zone — including even the US itself,” he opined. “And it
> seems likely that they would be carried out without notifying the foreign
> country in question.”
>
> Roth continued: “Of course, we’ve frequently, and quite openly, used the
> military to carry out attacks on specific Qaeda leaders — even before 9/11.
> But using the CIA to do so, and with such broad authority to operate
> anywhere in the world, as this program seems to have given the agency, would
> appear to take things into a different realm.”
>
> *‘Every president since Truman’*
>
> According to [3] historian Christopher
> Andrew<http://hnn.us/articles/360.html>,
> under questioning by *New York Times* reporters and editors in 1975,
> President Gerald Ford explained that U.S. intelligence documents must not be
> revealed to the public because the revelations would “blacken the reputation
> of every President since Truman.”
>
> “Like what?” he was asked.
>
> “Like assassinations!” replied Ford, who later insisted the comment be kept
> “off the record.”
>
> The discussion was held following Ford’s recent receipt of the CIA inspector
> general’s now-infamous report informally known as the “[4] Family
> Jewels<http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp>.”
> It revealed hundreds of CIA indiscretions ranging from experimenting on
> soldiers and prisoners with illegal, hallucinogenic drugs to assassination
> plots against South American leftists.
>
> “The Times group returned to their bureau for a spirited argument about
> whether they could pass up a story potentially so explosive,” [5] noted
> reporter Daniel Schorr <http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAfordG.htm>.
> “Managing Editor E. C. Daniel called the White House in the hope of getting
> Nessen to ease the restriction from ‘off-the-record’ to ‘deep background.’
> Nessen was more adamant than ever that the national interest dictated that
> the president’s unfortunate slip be forgotten. Finally, Sulzberger cut short
> the debate, saying that, as the publisher, he would decide, and he had
> decided against the use of the incendiary information.”
>
> Schorr, who reported Ford’s comment for CBS News later that year, would
> later reveal that the president was not speaking about specific killings,
> but assassination conspiracies. In Schorr’s follow-up, then-CIA Director
> William Colby insisted that the agency had not been involved in
> assassinations since 1973.
>
> However, on Sept. 21, 1976, Orlando Letelier, a leftist Chilean political
> figure-turned Washington, D.C.-based, anti-Pinochet activist, was
> assassinated in D.C. by a car bomb. The act of terrorism also claimed the
> life of his assistant, Ronni Moffitt.
>
> The FBI would later determine that Michael Townley, a former CIA asset,
> organized the assassination, aided by a visa provided by Robert White, then
> U.S. ambassador to Paraguay. The hit was discovered to be part of Operation
> Condor, a program coordinated by South American governments which sought to
> eliminate leftist political figures.
>
> White, it was revealed in 2001, discovered that a U.S. communications
> installation in Panama’s canal zone was being used “to co-ordinate
> intelligence information among the southern cone countries [involved in
> Operation Condor].”
>
> He advised Secretary of State Cyrus Vance [6] in a classified
> cable<http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/news/20010306/>that the U.S.
> connection to the Letelier assassination could be revealed if
> the arrangement to facilitate Operation Condor’s communications were ever to
> be discovered.
>
> According to Mark Zepezauer in his book “[7] The CIA’s Greatest
> Hits<http://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Greatest-Hits-Real-Story/dp/1878825305>,”
> the agency knew a “hit squad was in the US and headed for Washington.”
>
> The hit was ordered by Chile’s Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (National
> Intelligence Directorate), part of the country’s secret police under
> dictator Augusto Pinochet.
>
> “After the bombing, the [CIA] purged its files of photos of the assassins,”
> Zepezauer added. “The CIA and DINA then began planting stories in the press
> suggesting that Letelier had been killed by leftists seeking to make a
> martyr of him. … The FBI figured out the identities of Letelier’s assassins
> within weeks, but didn’t charge them until the CIA’s cover-up unraveled
> several years later.”
>
> He concludes: “Apologists argue that no one can prove that Letelier’s
> convicted assassins, ‘former’ CIA agent Michael Townley and two Cuban
> exiles, were acting under agency orders. But if they weren’t, why did the
> CIA immediately begin covering up for them?”
>
> In 1976, President Ford issued an executive order banning U.S.-sponsored
> assassinations.
>
> URLs in this post:
> [1] a Thursday report in *The Washington Post*: *
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503856.html
> *
> [2] alking Points Memo’s Zachary Roth: *
> http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/report_cia_assassin_program_could_operate_anywhere
> .php
> *
> [3] historian Christopher Andrew: *http://hnn.us/articles/360.html*
> [4] Family Jewels: *http://www.foia.cia.gov/browse_docs.asp*
> [5] noted reporter Daniel Schorr: *
> http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAfordG.htm*
> [6] in a classified cable: *http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010306/*
> [7] The CIA’s Greatest Hits: *
> http://www.amazon.com/CIAs-Greatest-Hits-Real-Story/dp/1878825305*
>